Slater & Gordon's £53.8 million acquisition of Russell Jones & Walker gets the green light

Slater & Gordon’s long awaited acquisition of UK law firm Russell Jones & Walker (RJW) will go ahead on April 30, following the SRA’s approval of its application for an Alternative Business Structure (ABS) licence.

Slater & Gordon, an Australian plaintiff law firm, is no stranger to being at the vanguard of legal developments – it was the world’s first publicly listed law firm in May 2007, and will be the first overseas firm to join forces with a UK firm under the new arrangements permitted by the Legal Services Act.

Slater & Gordon and RJW announced their plans to join forces back in January, after 12 months of negotiations and due diligence, but the SRA’s approval of the necessary SRA licence was only obtained today. 

The equity partners of RJW are understood to have exchanged their traditional partnership interests in RJW for shares in Slater & Gordon, which they will hold for a minimum of four years. Slater & Gordon, prior to the acquisition of RJW, had roughly 1,000 employees operating from a network of more than 50 offices across Australia, whilst RJW had 400 staff across 10 offices.

Neil Kinsella, the RJW Chief Executive believes that the pairing with Slater & Gordon will enable them to stay “at the forefront of a changing legal landscape” and enable RJW “to become the largest and most trusted brand for personal legal services in the UK”. RJW’s legal practice will trade as ‘Russell, Jones & Walker part of Slater & Gordon Lawyers’ from Monday – something of a mouthful for advertising purposes, but presumably a recognition of the fact that, for the time being at least, RJW is a better known name amongst UK clients than Slater & Gordon. The £53.8 million acquisition includes RJW’s Claims Direct business, which it is believed will continue with its existing brand.

It is understood that Slater & Gordon will pay just over £36 million of the acquisition price in cash, of which £8.8m will be deferred for up to two years subject to performance targets, and £10.3m will be used to pay off RJW bank borrowings, with the remaining consideration taking the form of Slater & Gordon in shares.

Andrew Grech, Slater & Gordon Managing Director said “This partnership gives RJW security so that they can continue providing a first class legal service, but it also gives them the resources needed to develop and grow whilst retaining and attracting talented people in a way that would not have been possible otherwise.....The potential to share technology and have greater resources to retain and attract additional talented people will underpin our future success.”